Twelve folds to a dumpling

One of the reasons to visit Taiwan is its food, claims the country. Unlike other countries, Taiwan concentrates on particular foods and one of them is the dumpling. To create the best, Tony Wang of the newly opened Taipei Park Hotel told me, twelve folds are required. And, as a hotelier with a fine restaurant, shouldn’t he know?
Food is not the first thing you might think of when you consider Taiwan as a holiday destination. Unfairly, it is often considered a country of mass production where toys and electronics are created to satisfy a world-wide demand for cheap products. Part of the push by Taiwan to get us to go there is to dispel that image.
The capital, Taipei is in the north and has direct flights from the UK. And like any other capital it is big and has the usual attractions you would expect. But it isn’t “true” Taiwan. You could split the country into three; the east, the mountains and the west. The west is the most developed and has fast train links to the south where visitors have traditionally gone. By car it will take four hours; by slow train, two and by the bullet trains just an hour and a half so it is a country that is easy to see a lot of in one visit. Down in the south east there are endless beaches that attract surfers the world over. Ideally suited to a twin-centre holiday then, you can easily view the heritage and the scenery and wrap up your holiday with some quality sun bathing on long and wide sandy beaches.
The mountains form the backbone to the island stretching almost from top to bottom and here can be found the nine aboriginal tribes that largely follow the way of life their ancestors did. Each has different cultures and each can be visited. It is even possible to spend time experiencing how they live, seeing their culture and eating with them as well. In fact two-thirds of Taiwan is mountainous and they have 250 peaks over 3,000 metres high. With that landscape it will come as no surprise that walking, hiking and even cycling has attracted big visitor numbers. Big by their standards but not by ours, so there is still that feeling of plenty of space for everyone. This is because it has only been in the last decade that Taiwan has really pushed to attract visitors.
Taiwan is one of those lucky countries that we as visitors are becoming more attracted to. It is big enough to see and do a lot but small enough (about twice the size of Wales) to get around in one good holiday.